What Food Reform Means--"vegetarian» Recipes-meatless Entrees-the Value of Cheesenut Cutlets

For some years I have been seeing daily how successful food reform, of the right and sensible kind, can be, and how healthy it can make people and keep people; and I often wonder the converts to food reform are not to be counted by millions.

The first step is to get satisfactory substitutes for meat. It is quite clear that we must look for two distinct things - first, the body-building and waste-repairing proteid; secondly, the stimulating and appetising.

It is equally clear that badly cooked vegetables will not take the place of meat. For instance, potatoes, cabbages, and turnips are poor in proteid, and have no bodybuilding or stimulating properties.

The two chief problems, then, are:

1. What are the food bases (proteids) to be used instead of meat?

2. What are the stimulants and appetisers to be used instead of the juices of meat ?

For the present. the simplest way is to advise, in place of meat, some good substitute.

Later on, of course, one considers the making of soups, the cookery of vegetables in a double pan (hot-air) cooker' so as to preserve their valuable juices and flavours, and, generally, the balancing of the different elements, and the right order of the different foods, and so on. But, as a first step, it is enough to ask, " What shall we take instead of meat?"

At various meetings I hear ardent food reformers (who prefer to be called " fruitarians " or " vegetarians ") arguing that the meat business is inhumane (as, alas! it is), that meat is expensive, that it contains uric acid, that it may be tuberculous, and so on. All this is true; but they do not explain the scientific side of meat or give it its due as a body-builder and repairer, and as a stimulant and appetiser.

If people first understand why meat (apparently) does them good, it is easier to explain to them why it does them harm. It is no use to abuse our old workers and servants, and give them notice, until we have found some equally experienced workers and servants to take their place. In this article it will be best, just for the present, to be content to alter one item in the meal, and only one. The rest of the meal may have faults and mistakes, but these can be left till later on. Rome was not built in a day, and an old-fashioned English meal will not be un-built in a day.

Instead of meat and gravy, then, I suggest, as alternatives, one or two body-building and appetising substitutes, or entrees. For in food reform there are no joints; entrees usually take the place of joints.

The first meatless entree (or sustaining dish) may contain eggs, boiled or poached or scrambled, or made into an omelette. This is a nice recipe for scrambled eggs:

Nourishing Scrambled Eggs

The proteid here comes from the eggs and proteid food.

Ingredients: One ounce of butter, two eggs, one tablespoonful of milk, pepper and salt if required, buttered toast.

Utensils: A small saucepan and a basin.

Recipe: Prepare some buttered toast and keep it hot. Melt the butter in a saucepan or deep fryer. Beat up the eggs in the basin and add them to the butter, and pepper and salt if required. Put the mixture into the saucepan or deep fryer, and cook and stir until the eggs are set, stir in proteid food, and lastly the milk. Turn out upon the buttered toast, and serve.

Eggs do not agree with everyone. Perhaps they may tend to biliousness. In that case, the entree, or sustaining dish, could contain cheese.

The recipe I give is one out of many for "Welsh rarebit."

Proteid Welsh Rarebit

In this recipe the proteid comes from the cheese, proteid food, and bread.

Ingredients: Four ounces of hard, dry, Cheddar cheese, one ounce of butter, one ounce of proteid food, one tablespoonful of milk. For flavouring, if desired, one tea-spoonful of made mustard, or a little grated onion, a quarter of a teaspoonful or less of paprika or capsicum, one tablespoonful of digestive sauce, or any one of these alone.

Utensils: A nut and cheese mill and a saucepan.

Recipe: Prepare some buttered toast. Mill the cheese. Put the butter into a saucepan over the gas-ring, and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the flavouring and the milk. Then add the milled cheese and proteid food, and stir until the consistency is that of thick cream. Spread on the buttered toast, brown the top (if desired), and serve very hot.

As a third alternative for the entree, or sustaining dish, here is a recipe for nut cutlets.

It needs a nut and cheese mill, but this little apparatus is almost indispensable in food reform cookery, and is necessary for hundreds of the best dishes, for it grinds the nuts and the cheese, and all the spare odds and ends of crusts and bits of bread can be passed through it and converted into bread-crumbs, instead of being thrown into the dustbin or fire; and so it is economical too.

Nut Cutlets

Ingredients: Two ounces of mixed nuts, two ounces of proteid food, two ounces of breadcrumbs, one teaspoonful of non-meat extract, an egg to bind, or milk if preferred, one ounce of butter, one small slice of onion, vegetable butter to fry in, one teaspoonful of tomato sauce.

Method: Fry the nuts and onion in a part of the butter, then pass them through the nut-mill. Add the proteid, breadcrumbs, and sauce, and the non-meat extract (which has been dissolved in the remainder of the butter). Mix all well on a board, add the egg to bind, shape into six cutlets. Egg, breadcrumb, and fry in boiling vegetable butter in the deep fryer and basket. Can be served with fried parsley.

Suppose, however, that at the table there are no egg or cheese or nut dishes, and no cheese or nuts, and no peas or haricot beans or lentils, but simply the ordinary fare (meat, bread, two vegetables, and sweet), what is to be done if we would rather not ask for a special dish?

As this is by far the commonest problem for would-be food reformers, I will offer in this article one suggestion for its solution. It is for the person to take the proteid part of his meal in a simple form, easily prepared or ready for eating or drinking, before the meal. There are many specialties that can be had for this purpose that can be eaten in biscuit or tablet form, or with hot water. We are constantly asked for these when people are going to pay visits or stay at hotels, where there is only the ordinary fare, which they cannot eat, and so they have to be provided with little secret substitutory meals with which to "fill up the gaps."

Another great thing to remember in taking the first step in food reform is not to eat too much at a time in bulk. For it is not quantity that builds our bodies, but quality.

A small dish of Welsh rarebit, properly made, is a far better midday meal than a plate of soup, and then a plate of vegetables (with all the juices boiled out of them), ending off with a rice pudding and some fruit.

It is far better to finish a meal feeling you have not eaten enough than to feel as if you have eaten too much.

And that is what makes the first step in food reform so important - namely, what to eat instead of the meat course.

It is a problem very little studied by the old-fashioned "vegetarian," whose plan was to " leave out the meat, and eat the rest." The "rest" was probably poor in proteid and also unappetising. And, therefore, if the scientific authorities are right in saying that a certain amount of proteid should be eaten daily in some form or other to build and repair the body, a great deal of "the rest" should be eaten - in fact, far more than an ordinary person can eat!

Think of potatoes and cabbages, for instance. While three ounces of roast beef will give one ounce of body-building proteid, how many ounces of potatoes and cabbages will give one ounce of it? The amount which is supposed to be needed by one person, at one meal, makes us shudder to think of! It is - according to many tables of food-values - about 100 ounces of potatoes and cabbages, or over six pounds in weight!

Suppose, however, that instead of meat, and instead of this terrible excess of potatoes and cabbages, you choose nuts and cheese among your bases; then you can get one ounce of proteid from quite a reasonable amount of these. The writer is not saying that one ounce of proteid is needed by one person at a meal; but simply saying that if it is needed then we cannot get it from potatoes and cabbages, nor at all easily from bread and puddings either. Even if only half an ounce is really needed, even then these foods will not contain it within a satisfactory compass.

No, we must study food-values for a time, till we know, without referring to a book, what can take the place of meat and what can not.

So that the beginner in food reform may have a variety of recipes to choose from, a few more are given below. It would be a good plan to experiment for a month on having one of these simple meatless dishes on the table at lunch or dinner, even if the other dishes consisted of meat or chicken or fish.

The beginner would then have something nourishing and tasty to eat instead of discarding the flesh-foods, and only ' eating the rest."

Cheese Balls

Ingredients: Two ounces of grated or milled Cheddar or Parmesan cheese, two ounces of brown breadcrumbs, one table-spoonful of tomato sauce, pepper and salt if required, a little grated onion, some parsley, to be fried. Boiling oil or vegetable butter.

Method: Mix the cheese, breadcrumbs, grated onion, and the pepper and salt if required, into a stiff paste with the tomato sauce; form into balls, roll in the egg and breadcrumbs, and fry in boiling oil. Serve with fried parsley.

Tomato Cheese

Line a buttered pie-dish with breadcrumbs, grate or mill some dry cheese on the crumbs, add pepper and salt if required. Take two, three, or four tomatoes, according to the size of the dish, and divide each into four slices. Put some of the pieces on the breadcrumbs, then add another layer of tomatoes, then a thin layer of grated or milled cheese, finally a thin layer of breadcrumbs. Dot small pieces of butter on the top, and bake for about twenty minutes.

Eggs And Spinach

Ingredients: One pound of spinach, two ounces of butter, four eggs, one ounce of grated or milled cheese, pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg to taste.

Method: Cook the spinach in the butter in a doubie-pan cooker until tender. Pass through a fine sieve, put into a stewpan, and add seasonings and well-beaten eggs. Stir until they thicken, and serve at once on toast.

N.B. - Do not allow the material to boil, or it will curdle.